This invention relates to marine gear assemblies for transmitting torque from an engine to the propeller of a ship. More particularly, the invention relates to a marine gear configuration in which internal clutches are more readily accessible for inspection, maintenance and repair without extensive disassembly and without removing the marine gear from the normal working position in a ship.
Typical prior art marine gears are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,566,707 and 2,841,023.
Marine gear assemblies are utilized in ships to transmit torque from an engine to the propeller shaft. In addition to providing for a speed reduction and accompanying torque increase, such mechanisms include clutches for selectively de-coupling the ship's engines from the propeller shaft and for reversing drive direction when necessary. The clutch plates in marine gear assemblies are subjected to severe wear and thus must be inspected at intervals and must be replaced more often than most other components of the assembly.
Accordingly marine gear assemblies are designed to enable access to the clutch plates but this has heretofore been an undesirably difficult, time-consuming and costly operation. The engine and the propeller shaft of a ship cannot readily be moved to provide the amount of clearance space needed for access to the interior of the marine gear assembly. Consequently, it has been necessary in most cases to disconnect the entire marine gear assembly from the engine and propeller shaft and then to hoist the assembly out of the normal installation bed in the ship to enable access to the internal clutch structure. In other cases where the gear assembly configuration does not make this necessary, a very complicated and time consuming disassembly of much of the mechanism has been required in order to provide access to the clutch plates.